Sunday, April 24, 2011

Grant year, week 16: slow progress

I didn't get my word count this week. But I just checked my overall stats and I'm 15,000 words in the black so I'm not going to kick myself too hard. The thing is, I've plotted out (roughly) the final act, so I know what I need to write. Just having trouble getting there. My wife hypothesised that maybe I'm scared of finishing the first draft. And I think she's right. Because I know from past experience that that's where the hard graft really starts! How about you, anyone else out there scared of finishing first drafts.

I think I mentioned earlier that a friend/colleague has offered to do a structural edit. Which is great, but I've got to figure out the best way to spend my time while she's working on it. I don't want to spend time copy editing on chunks that may end up on the 'cutting room floor'. So, I think what I'll do is research to flesh out the description/characters in my second go-through. And also spend some time plotting the second book.

I'm going to pitch Skin Deep as the first book in a series, so I need to have the second book at least plotted out. I probably need to start writing it too. And I've got some ideas that I find as exciting as the premise behind Skin Deep. So I need to capitalise on that enthusiasm (you know, the enthusiasm for the next book, that you always get when you're mired in the current book!).

The other breakthrough that came this week was the name for my fictional outlaw bikie gang. I'm not going to lay it out there just yet because I want to think it through a bit more. But it's tough-sounding, it's not even an actual word, but it's based on a military word (which fits the bill, because a lot of the early bikie gangs were formed by veterans returning from WWII -- Hell's Angels is a classic example of this).

The name is important because the gang features in book two.

Posted via email from garykemble's posterous

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